Slide 2:
Wilson won a scholarship to attend the local grammar school, Royds Hall Secondary School, Huddersfield. His education was disrupted in 1931 when he contracted typhoid fever after drinking contaminated milk on a Scouts’ outing and took months to recover. The next year his father, working as an industrial chemist, was made redundant and moved to Spital on the Wirral to find work. Wilson attended the sixth form at the Wirral Grammar School for Boys, where he became Head Boy.
Slide 3:
As the War drew to an end, he searched for a seat to fight at the impending general election. He was selected for Ormskirk, then held by Stephen King-Hall. Wilson accidentally agreed to be adopted as the candidate immediately rather than delay until the election was called, and was therefore compelled to resign from the Civil Service. He served as Praelector in Economics at University College between his resignation and his election to the House of Commons. He also used this time to write A New Deal for Coal which used his wartime experience to argue for nationalisation of the coal mines on the basis of improved efficiency.
Slide 4:
Wilson soon proved to be a very effective Shadow Minister. One of his procedural moves caused the loss of the Government’s Finance Bill in 1955, and his speeches as Shadow Chancellor from 1956 were widely praised for their clarity and wit. He coined the term “gnomes of Zurich” to describe Swiss bankers whom he accused of pushing the pound down by speculation. In the meantime, he conducted an inquiry into the Labour Party’s organisation following its defeat in the 1955 general election, which compared the Party organisation to an antiquated “penny farthing” bicycle, and made various recommendations for improvements. Unusually, Wilson combined the job of Chairman of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee with that of Shadow Chancellor from 1959 , holding the chairmanship of the PAC from 1959 to 1963.
Slide 5:
Education held special significance for a socialist of Wilson’s generation, in view of its role in both opening up opportunities for children from working class backgrounds and enabling the UK to seize the potential benefits of scientific advances. Wilson continued the rapid creation of new universities, in line with the recommendations of the Robbins Report, a bipartisan policy already in train when Labour took power. Alas, the economic difficulties of the period deprived the tertiary system of the resources it needed. However, university expansion remained a core policy. One notable effect was the first entry of women into university education in significant numbers.
Slide 6:
Another major controversy of the first Wilson term was the decision that the government could not fulfil its long-held promise to raise the school leaving age to 16, due to the investment required in infrastructure such as extra classrooms and teachers. Baroness Jennie Lee considered resigning in protest, but narrowly decided against this in the interests of party unity. It was left to Margaret Thatcher to carry out the change, during the Heath government.